{"id":76737,"date":"2014-12-23T13:20:26","date_gmt":"2014-12-23T13:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=76737"},"modified":"2014-12-23T11:21:25","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T11:21:25","slug":"apple-building-next-massive-business-one-seems-noticed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/12\/apple-building-next-massive-business-one-seems-noticed\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple is building its next massive business and no one seems to have noticed"},"content":{"rendered":"
Spot quiz: What is Apple’s fastest-growing product by total dollar sales?<\/p>\n
If you thought iPhones or iPads, you’d be wrong. Growth of both those is in decline.<\/p>\n
It’s actually e-commerce – via iTunes, iBooks and the app stores. Sales of extra, non-Apple “stuff” via Apple’s products were up 19% to $4.4 billion in Q1 2014.<\/p>\n
This business is one of Apple’s smaller lines, of course. But it’s still impressive: If there was a standalone tech startup that was doing greater than $16 billion a year in digital e-commerce sales, and growing at nearly 20% a year, everyone would be talking about it.<\/p>\n
It would be the hottest company on the planet. It certainly dwarfs Zappos, an e-commerce company who last reported annual revenues were just over $2 billion.<\/p>\n
While the tech press is obsessed with Apple’s plans for an iWatch and a new Apple TV device, it’s instructive to pay closer attention to the business CEO Tim Cook is actually already building. Because it looks an awful lot like Apple’s future growth might come from online and mobile retail, not from creating new product categories with new, yet-to-be-invented products.<\/p>\n
On his last earnings call, Cook talked about this specifically:<\/p>\n
In general, we’re seeing that people love being able to buy content, whether it’s music or movies or books, from their iPhone, using Touch ID. It’s incredibly simple and easy and elegant, and it’s clear that there’s a lot of opportunity there.<\/p>\n
The mobile payments area in general is one that we’ve been intrigued with, and that was one of the thoughts behind Touch ID. But we’re not limiting ourselves just to that. So I don’t have anything specific to announce today, but you can tell by looking at the demographics of our customers and the amount of commerce that goes through iOS devices versus the competition that it’s a big opportunity on the platform.<\/p>\n
If Cook had made exactly the same statements about watches or TVs, everyone would have freaked out. Apple fanboys would be jumping for joy.<\/p>\n
But because he’s talking about the dull-but-lucrative business of retail, everyone is ignoring it.<\/p>\n